Organon F
Volume 32, August 2025, Issue 3, Pages 262–299
ISSN 2585-7150 (online)
Research Article
Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain?
Savvas Ioannou
I will consider two views about the structure of reality: metaphysical foundationalism (all grounded entities are fully grounded in ungrounded entities) and metaphysical infinitism (there are infinite chains of grounding that lack a foundation). Foundationalists motivate their view by appealing to an intuition that there must be a fundamental level that is the source of reality (Schaffer) or causal capacity (Trogdon) of grounded entities because a grounded entity inherits its reality or causal capacity from its ground and there would be a vicious infinite regress otherwise. I will argue that this argument is not successful as the source of reality or causal capacity of an infinite chain can be its cause. For example, this source can be the direct physical cause, the first physical cause or a Prime Mover. A vicious infinite regress is avoided this way too because there is no transference of the same status ad infinitum.
Fundamentality; metaphysical foundationalism; metaphysical infinitism; vicious infinite regress.
Author
Savvas Ioannou
Affiliation
University of Cyprus
Address
Department of Classics and Philosophy, University of Cyprus, 1 Eressou Street, First Floor, P.O. Box 20537, CY-1678, Nicosia, Cyprus
Received
7 June 2024
Revised
23 March 2025
Accepted
31 March 2025
Publishers
Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
APA
Ioannou, S. (2025). Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain? Organon F, 32(3), 262–299. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32301
Chicago
Ioannou, Savvas. 2025. "Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain?" Organon F 32 (3): 262–299. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32301
Harvard
Ioannou, S. (2025). Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain? Organon F, 32(3), pp. 262–299. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32301
© Savvas Ioannou
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